"Clown" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sayst thou, clown?" quoth one of the men "Why, I tell thee that this is that same rogue that men ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... present instance to do none, was seen among docks and nettles, solacing himself with the few gooseberries which remained on some moss-grown bushes. To him Mr. Touchwood called loudly, enquiring after his master; but the clown, conscious of being taken in flagrant delict, as the law says, fled from him like a guilty thing, instead of obeying his summons, and was soon heard hupping and geeing to the cart, which he had left on the other ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... chatelaines with which young ladies love to adorn themselves at present. Files of patients kept streaming into the already crowded room, and one gentleman, reversing the order assigned to him by nature, walked gravely in on the palms of his hands, with his legs elevated in air. He had been a clown at a theatre, and still retained some of the proclivities of the boards. A wizen-faced man, who seemed to have no name beyond the conventional one of "Billy," strutted in with huge paper collars, like the corner man in a nigger ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... dress you may have for half de monish," Rafael replied; "there's a splendid clown for eight bob; but for dat Spanish dress, selp ma Moshesh, Mistraer Lint, ve'd ask a guinea of any but you. Here's a gentlemansh just come to look at it. Look 'ear, Mr. Brownsh, did you ever shee a nisher ting dan dat?" So saying, Rafael turned to Lord Codlingsby with the utmost gravity, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... all ye that can pray, tell all the Lord's people to try, by mourning and prayer, if ye can taigle him, taigle him especially in Scotland, for we fear, he will depart from it." This is the theology of a savage, in the style of a clown, but it is quoted by Walker as Mr. Alexander Peden's.' Mr. John Menzie's "Testimony" (1670) is all about "hardened men, whom though they walk with you for the present with horns of a lamb, yet afterward ye may hear them speak ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... He is far from prepossessing in personal appearance, and his voice is disagreeable; and yet he wins attention and good-will from the start. He indulges in no flowers of rhetoric, no eloquent passages. He is not a wit, a humorist, or a clown; yet so fine a vein of pleasantry and good-nature pervades what he says, gliding over a deep current of poetical arguments, that he keeps his hearers in a smiling mood, ready to swallow all he says. His sense of the ludicrous is very ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... and Oberon, seeing a clown near her who had lost his way in the wood and was likewise asleep, "This fellow," said he, "shall be my Titania's true love"; and clapping an ass's head over the clown's, it seemed to fit him as well as if it had grown upon his own ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... I suppose, is intended for our ears by the Duke of Styria. He probably wishes us to know that he is against us," said Charles. "He wanted our daughter for his clown of a son, and our contempt for his claims rankles in his heart. He cannot inflame Wuertemberg, and Wuertemberg cannot influence the ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... better if it were, it is so ugly and worn. It is too bad to expect Mr and Mrs Thornton to do all the hard, depressing work of the parish and keep bright and cheerful themselves, when their home is enough to give the blues to a clown! It looks as if it hadn't ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the work was, Bodo sang lustily to cheer himself and Wido; for is it not related that once, when a clerk was singing the 'Allelulia' in the emperor's presence, Charles turned to one of the bishops, saying, 'My clerk is singing very well,' whereat the rude bishop replied, 'Any clown in our countryside drones as well as that to his oxen at their ploughing'?[6] It is certain too that Bodo agreed with the names which the great Charles gave to the months of the year in his own Frankish tongue; for he called January 'Winter-month', ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... and some of the men limped painfully. Altogether it was not a sight to arouse much enthusiasm in the heart of a boy, accustomed to seeing the outside glitter of a circus, with prancing steeds, gay colors, music, and the humorous antics of the clown. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... but even comically excusable. Who were all these pompous preposterous people with their footmen and their foot-scrapers, their chimney-pots and their chimney-pot hats, that they should prevent a poor clown from getting sausages if he wanted them? One would suppose that property was a serious thing. I had reached, as it were, a higher level of that mountainous and vapourous visions, the heaven of ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... carelessly or dishonestly employed. And when a man has had any actual experience of this, and at all perceived how far this mischief reaches, he is sometimes almost tempted to say with Shakespeare, 'Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools'; to adopt the saying of his clown, 'Words are grown so false I am loathe to prove reason with them.' He cannot, however, forego their employment; not to say that he will presently perceive that this falseness of theirs whereof he accuses them, this cheating power, is not of their proper ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... such as has been described. But, to reduce this to a common-sense view, it is only saying,—what no one will deny,—that a man of education and refinement has not only more, but higher, pleasures of the mind than a mere clown. ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... a rush what kind of vessel this coaster was, whether old or new, bound on a cruise to New Orleans or Baffin's Bay; nor did I care whether the captain was a gentleman or a clown; a worthy man or an ignorant bully. I was anxious to obtain the vacant situation, and feared that the captain, following the fashion of the Long Island farmers, would not like the cut of my jib. I learned, however, that the schooner was a comfortable vessel, about a hundred tons burden, ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... a cherished clown in that section of society in which the Newlyns had their being, was making believe to cry, his large mouth opened grotesquely, his fists digging ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... schoolmaster, a most worthy King Log, whom Ben dumbfounds twenty times a day. He is a great ornament of the cricket-ground, has a real genius for the game, and displays it after a very original manner, under the disguise of awkwardness—as the clown shows off his agility in a pantomime. Nothing comes amiss to him. By the bye, he would have been the very lad for us in our present dilemma; not a horse in England could master Ben Kirby. But we are ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... emancipated bagman, or contemptible chevalier d'industrie. Of this we have an example in "Le Gendre," in some respects one of the most objectionable of De Bernard's novels, certainly not well suited for a birth-day present to misses in their teens. A seemingly tame, insipid clown of a husband counteracts the base manoeuvres of a dashing Paris roue; and finally, after refusing to fight the would-be seducer, whom he has ascertained to be an arrant swindler, takes truncheon in hand, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... Marcelline, the clown at the Hippodrome—always pretending to help, but forever keeping underfoot. When it becomes necessary I raise the money ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... by chariot-horses, of which a representation has been already given. It is cut square with two drooping lappets, and covers the greater part of the body. Occasionally it is united to a sort of breastplate which protects the neck, descending about halfway clown the chest. The material may be supposed to have been thick felt or leather, either of which would have been a considerable protection ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... sought to beguile themselves—each for the sake of the other—with all the tricks and chimeras of optimism, but that was only the masquerade of the clown who laughs while his heart is sick and under whose toy-bright paint is the gray pallor ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... who become more serious as they approach the holy city, that he commences, for the good of their souls, his ample "meditation." The coarse story told by the miller had been justified by excuses no less appropriate to the person and to the circumstances; the person was a clown, and chanced to be drunk; now the person is a saint, and, as it happens, they are just nearing the place ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... his sympathy by laughing aloud. "I say, you look just like a clown; doesn't he, Padger, with his eye all sorts of colours and his cheek like ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... fellow-feeling to me, both as a brother and a medicus, that made him declare me on the point of death when I was still as lusty as a false credo. For the rest, I had sufficient science to hold in my breath while the clown tied me with cords, else had I been too straitened to breathe. But thou needest a biscuit with ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... this passes all patience!" he cried wrathfully. "If this ship of yours must needs dance and skip like a clown at a kermesse, then I pray you that you will put me into one of these galeasses. I had but sat down to a flask of malvoisie and a mortress of brawn, as is my use about this hour, when there comes a cherking, and I find my wine ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... up-country town, When we were boys at school, There came a circus with a clown, Likewise a bucking mule. The clown announced a scheme they had Spectators for to bring— They'd give a crown to any lad Who'd ride him ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... and taking off his soft hat he began to beat it impatiently against his leg as he walked. "Why shouldn't she take me seriously?" he demanded sharply. "Am I a comedian, a clown, a jack-in-the-box? Why shouldn't she? You Creoles! I have no patience with you! Am I always to be regarded as a feature of an amusing programme? I hope Mrs. Pontellier does take me seriously. I hope she has discernment enough to find in me something besides the blagueur. ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... young spark named Amoretto, with whom he had been intimate at college; two others endeavour to gain a subsistence by successively appearing as physicians, actors, and musicians: but the Man of Genius is disregarded, and at last prosecuted for his productions; the benefice is sold to an illiterate clown; and in the end three of the scholars are compelled to submit to a voluntary exile; another returns to Cambridge as poor as when he left it; and the other two, finding that neither their medicines nor their music would support them, resolve to turn shepherds, and ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... phalanx falter? To the rescue, at the need, The clown was ploughing Persia, clearing Greek earth of weed, As he routed through the Sakian ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... each other recklessly. Marie wanted it, too, and she kept making signals to Frank, which he took a sour pleasure in disregarding. He didn't see the use of making a fuss over a fellow just because he was dressed like a clown. When the turquoise went to Malvina Sauvage, the French banker's daughter, Marie shrugged her shoulders and betook herself to her little tent of shawls, where she began to shuffle her cards by the light of a tallow ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... a rabbit out of one of the girl's handkerchiefs, and was springing it from his hand against the wall. He seemed to have a fair appreciation of the character of his associates for the evening; and though himself perfectly competent to behave well in the best society, chose to act the clown in this. ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... understand his gabble, took the larger portion for read, after muttering the first words of the rubric. A little carven image of an acolyte—a weird boy who seemed to move by springs, whose hair had all the semblance of painted wood, and whose complexion was white and red like a clown's—did not make matters more intelligible by ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... wine and white wine until they were very merry. Two rang bells, two played castanets, and two sang. One carried a tray behind his back laden with good things, so that all could help themselves; some smoked water-pipes; another acted like a clown; others played various tunes ...
— The Cat and the Mouse - A Book of Persian Fairy Tales • Hartwell James
... characters being chosen from the class who appear as supers in Pan; subjects or retainers of the all-powerful Trader Mack. It is as if the sub-plots in one of Shakespeare's plays had been taken out for separate presentment, and the clown promoted to be hero in a play of his own. The cast is increased, the milieu lightly drawn in Pan is now shown more comprehensively and in detail, making us gradually acquainted with a whole little community, a village world, knowing little of any world beyond, ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... sowed the trodden ground beneath With smashed incisors, like the teeth, The dragon's tusks of ancient ken From which sprung hosts of armed men. Such pastime was a frequent thing, The entertainment of the ring, Without equestrian or clown Was often seen in Cork's own town, And best, for impecunious boys Who boasted few of modern joys, Who daily went to see the play Had no admission fee to pay. But gone is Corkstown, vanished too The whitewashed ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... player in an orchestra can enjoy such music only as would deafen common ears by its crash of sounds, in which they perceive no connection or harmony; while the simple rustic listens to the rude notes of a flageolet in the hands of a clown with feelings of ineffable delight. Nature, if the seekers after luxurious and exciting pleasures could but understand her language, would say to them, "Except ye become as this simple rustic, ye ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... in the very worst of taste from his scarfpin to his boots, he had evidently just been too carefully shaved, for there were scratches on his wide, ludicrous face, and his smile was as rueful as a clown's. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... Nautilus floated in these brilliant waves, and our admiration increased as we watched the marine monsters disporting themselves like salamanders. I saw there in the midst of this fire that burns not the swift and elegant porpoise (the indefatigable clown of the ocean), and some swordfish ten feet long, those prophetic heralds of the hurricane whose formidable sword would now and then strike the glass of the saloon. Then appeared the smaller fish, the balista, the leaping mackerel, wolf-thorn-tails, ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... Northern Farmer: "Doan't thou marry for money, but go where money is." An admirable piece of advice. Well, Maud made a mistake, let us say. Dolomore is a clown, and now she knows it. Why, if she had waited, she might have married one of the leading men of the day. She is fit to be a duchess, as far as appearance goes; but I was never snobbish. I care very little about titles; what I look to is ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... thou shalt lower to his level day by day, What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay. As the husband is the wife is; thou art mated with a clown, And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down. He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... augmented gayety. There were no more telephone messages, nor was there any definite foundation for the rumor that was presently stealthily circulating. Women, powdering their noses as they waited for their wraps, murmured it in the dressing-rooms; a clown, smoking in the hall, confided it to a Mephistopheles; a pastry cook, after his effusive good-nights, confirmed it as he climbed into the motorcar that held the Pierrette who was his wife: "Dead, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... gave the necessary orders. He lost no time about it, but returned panting, and lay down in a hollow behind us with cartridges in either fist and a grin on his face that would have done credit to a circus clown. I never, anywhere, saw any one more pleased than Kazimoto at ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... sticks with all their might, making a most unearthly racket. The whole being a fit emblem of what is going on in the other world of unclean spirits. Those forming the circle, kept going around shouting and kicking, with all the actions and paraphernalia of a clown in a pantomine, only not ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney
... sister, whom he had driven out of her own house to die at the inn. He had on his new blue frock-coat, and a buff waistcoat with gilt buttons, over which his watch-chain was gracefully arranged. His pantaloons were strapped clown very tightly over his polished boots; a shining new silk hat was on one side of his head; and in his hand he was dangling an ebony cane. In spite, however, of all these gaudy trappings, he could not muster up an easy air; and, as he knocked, he had that look ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... said the princess, 'and undoubtedly, if I had to deal with a clown, or a man who lacked good sense, I should feel myself very awkwardly situated. "A princess must keep her word," he would say, "and you must marry me because you promised to!" But I am speaking to a man of the world, of the greatest good sense, and I am sure that he will listen to reason. As ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... a bit last week because the village clown was on his home leave. He is a lad of twenty-three with a young wife and a little three-year-old girl, who has learned to talk since "dada" saw her, and is her father right over—full of fun, ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... which reminds us so completely of one of those "gorgeous processions" in Eastern "spectacles" at home, that we wonder for a moment whether it be "part of the play," or tangible, sober reality. Yes! placed upon a scarlet cushion lies an enormous gilt key (such a one as clown in the pantomime might open his writing-desk with, or such as hangs over a locksmith's door), and above it glistens a golden legend to the effect that the treasure beneath was presented to "William of Prussia by his loving cousin, ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... and Wisdom side by side, just as we find them in Calderon's and Shakespeare's dramas, Lucretia presented the costly robe which she wore when she offered up her prayer, to one of her court fools, and the clown ran merrily through the streets of Rome, bawling out, "Long live the illustrious Duchess of Ferrara! Long live Pope Alexander!" With noisy demonstrations the Borgias and their retainers ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... Smith slowly said— "Let us plan to carry out the crowning farce, May it serve to charm the haughty Powhatan, As it pleases England's monarch for the time. Yes, the scarlet robe will dazzle Indian chief, An' it is your wish to make of him a clown. 'Tis a trifling matter that; more serious far Charges given you by the London Company, Who from distant lands know naught, in truth, Of the frontier hardships, of the settler's needs. Can you not inform them in the plainest terms Of the falseness ...
— Pocahontas. - A Poem • Virginia Carter Castleman
... class distinctions from our shoulders shall be hurled, An' the influence of woman revolutionize the world; There'll be higher education for the toilin' starvin' clown, An' the rich an' educated shall be educated down; An' we all will meet amidships on this stout old earthly craft, An' there won't be any friction 'twixt the classes fore-'n'-aft. We'll be brothers, fore-'n'-aft! Yes, an' sisters, fore-'n'-aft! ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... dramatized—not a girl you take out to supper only to find that she has no wit, no charm, no anything but a monstrous appetite for indigestible food and a silly ambition to play roles the gods never intended her to play. In that pantomime she was a frolic, the clown's daughter, and, though nobody saw it, she was the whole piece, the elusive sprite that could evoke laughter and tears by a gesture, a lifting of the brows, a grimace. By utterly different methods in 'Honourable Women' she proved her wide range of appeal. The chap who produced 'Honourable Women' ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... could have made Trannel's behavior a cause of quarrel, but the other Kentons made it a cause of coldness which was quite as effective. In Lottie this took the form of something so active, so positive, that it was something more than a mere absence of warmth. Before she came clown to breakfast the next morning she studied a stare in her mirror, and practised it upon Trannel so successfully when he came up to speak to her that it must have made him doubt whether he had ever had her acquaintance. In his doubt he ventured to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... recipient of Macaire's jokes, and makes vicarious atonement for his crimes, acting, in fact, the part which pantaloon performs in the pantomime, who is entirely under the fatal influence of clown. He is quite as much a rogue as that gentleman, but he has not his genius and courage. So, in pantomimes, (it may, doubtless, have been remarked by the reader,) clown always leaps first, pantaloon following after, more clumsily and timidly than his bold and ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Spain outshines Upon a fairer town Than Penafiel, or endows More richly farming clown; Nowhere a broader square reflects Such brilliant mansions, tall,— Away, ye ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... dressing-table, and the perfume I used lies all forsaken and forlorn. Fresh water, plenty of fresh water ... that's what I like. I'm a long way from the Leonora who had to paint herself every night like a clown before she could appear before an audience. Take a good look at me! Well ... what do you think? You might mistake me for one of your vassals almost, eh? I'll bet that if I had gone out this morning to join your demonstration ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Yet but a few days, Bob, and flakes of paint will have cracked off the fairy flower-bowers, and the revolving temples of adamantine lustre will be as shabby as the city of Pekin. When you read this, will Clown still be going on lolling his tongue out of his mouth, and saying, "How are you to-morrow?" To- morrow, indeed! He must be almost ashamed of himself (if that cheek is still capable of the blush of shame) for asking the absurd question. ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... America, when somewhere to the southward of the latitude of Demerara it came on to blow very hard from the north and west. The clouds came rushing along the sky like a mass of people all hurrying to see the king open parliament, or a clown throw a summersault at a fair, or anything of that sort, while the wind howled and screeched in the rigging as I have heard wild beasts in the woods in Africa, and the sea got up and tumbled and rolled as if the waves were dancing for their very lives. You need not believe it, but the ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... to be a champion and a high up man that had died for her sake. It is what broke her down in the latter end, hearing him to be no big man at all, but a clown! ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... dreadful, dismal, dirty hole, Seems more adapted for a mole Than 'tis for you; Oh! could you see My residence, how charm'd you'd be. Instead of bringing up your brood In wind, and wet, and solitude, Come bring them all at once to town, We'll make a courtier of a clown. I think that, for your children's sake, 'Tis proper my advice to take." "Well," said his host, "I can but try, And so poor quiet hole ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... sea-water, the clock to point to all hours of the day at once, the candle to burn green or crimson, the door to open upon a lake or a potato-field instead of a London street. Upon anyone who feels this nameless anarchism there rests for the time being the abiding spirit of pantomime. Of the clown who cuts the policeman in two it may be said (with no darker meaning) that he realizes one of our visions. And it may be noted here that this internal quality in pantomime is perfectly symbolized and preserved by ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... their harvests. Even the fat man was entertaining large audiences. The fellows had a thoroughly good time and took in almost every sight on the grounds. Judd had been kidded and made fun of until he was followed about by a troop of youngsters who thought he was a clown employed by the fair people. Judd was really embarrassed and ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... whar they wuz havin' the cirkus doin's, and I guess us two old codgers jist about busted our buttins a-laffin at that silly old clown. Wall, he cut up a lot of didos, then he went out and sot down right alongside of Aunt Nancy Smith; and Nancy she'd like to had histeericks. She sed, "You go 'way from me you painted critter," and that ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... story of The Vagabonds is the story of a husband and of a young wife who does not love him, but discovers that she loves another man—a story as old as the hills and common to every rank and every calling. Mrs. Woods has made the husband a middle-aged clown, the wife a girl with strict notions about respectability, and the lover, Fritz, a handsome young German gymnast. But there was no fundamental reason for this choice of professions. The tale might be every bit as true of a grocer, and a grocer's ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... not laugh if you do not want to," said Cutter. "I am used to being thought dull. Your gravity would not wound me though I were chief clown to the whole universe, and yours were the only grave face in the world. By the by, you are laughing, I see. I am much obliged for the appreciation. Shall I go on ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... of gorgeous spectacle, there should re-appear in our midst a revival of the ancient Pierrot who pantomimed himself into public favour with the Parisians towards the close of the seventeenth century. Red-hot poker, sausages, and filching Clown have had their day, and lo! when everyone said we were tired of the "comic business" of Pantomime, here in our midst re-appear almost in their habits as they lived, certainly with their white faces and black skull-caps "as they ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... footsteps in the sea, We whose great souls have risen so far above the creeds That we can jest at Christ and leave Him where He bleeds, A legend of the dark, a tale so false or true That howsoe'er we jest at Him, the jest sounds new. (Our weariest dinner-tables never tire of that! Let the clown sport with Christ, never the jest falls flat!) Poor fools, we dare not dream a dream so strange, so great, As on this ball of dust to found one "world-wide state," To float one common flag above our little lands, And ere our little sun grows cold to clasp our hands In friendship ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... to have survived only in the performances of circuses and menageries. Between acts the extravaganzaist in cork and wool would appear, and to the song of "Coal-Black Rose," or "Jim along Joe," or "Sittin' on a Rail," command, with the clown and monkey, full share of admiration in the arena. At first he performed solus, and to the accompaniment of the "show" band; but the school was progressive; couples presently appeared, and, dispensing with the aid of foreign instruments, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... to remain with her over Christmas. I longed to see the pantomime, having heard much from my cousins and from Leo of its delights—and of the harlequin, columbine, and clown. But my father wanted to be at home again, and he took me and Rubens and Nurse Bundle with him at the end ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... 'do it: be not too wise; Seeing that ye are wedded to a man, Not all mismated with a yawning clown, But one with arms to guard his head and yours, With eyes to find you out however far, And ears to hear you even in ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... "Simus," literally, fiat-nosed, was a cant word, used for a clown; Galba being jeered for his rusticity, in consequence of his long retirement. See c. viii. Indeed, they called Spain ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... his faith in the child, who had seen the image of Pegasus in the water, and in the maiden, who had heard him neigh so melodiously, rather than in the middle-aged clown, who believed only in cart-horses, or in the old man, who had forgotten the beautiful things of ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... experiences of the Bad Boy and his Dad during their travels with a Circus. The Bad Boy gets his Dad in hot water in every conceivable way, and plays jokes and pranks on everyone, from the Clown to the Manager, and from the Monkey to the Elephant. Rip-roaring, side-splitting fun from beginning ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... Whitmania—all the movements and sensations of the day, social, political, and artistic, in so far as they are follies—have been shot at as they rose. And having conquered his position, Punch has known how to retain it. "The clown," says Oliver Wendell Holmes, "knows his place to be at the tail of the procession." It is to Punch's honour that with conscious dignity—and, of course, with conscious impudence—he took his place at its head. And there he has stayed; and transforming ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... on which sorrow and sickness had entered the Hoogstraten mansion, was followed by a beautiful morning. Holland again became pleasant to the storks, that with a loud, joyous clatter flew clown into the meadows on which the sun was shining. It was one of those days the end of April often bestows on men, as if to show them that they render her too little, her successor too much honor. April can boast that in her house is born the spring, whose vigor is only strengthened ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... was to a very popular song of the period called 'The Bull in the China Shop,' words by C. Dibdin, Junior, and music by W. Reeve. Produced about 1808, it was popularized by the celebrated clown ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... Harlequin; not your spangled Harlequin into which modern degeneracy has debased that first-born of Momus, but the genuine original zany of the Commedia, ragged and patched, an impudent, cowardly, blackguardly clown." ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... laughing-stock to the community. The effect this has upon him will depend upon his temperament. Very sensitive and fine natures often instinctively seek to cover the real trouble by exaggerating the defects in every way possible,—making believe they do it all on purpose, and acting the clown and the ruffian, giving way to the irritability natural to the condition with a sort of reckless despair which is sure to be misunderstood and censured by those he loves best. When this stage is reached, ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... CLOWN. O, sir, a quart is a quart in any man's purse, and drink is drink, and can my master live without his ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... a very small boy back before the war, a circus came to town. I remember the clown, whose name was Gullins. My father, John Mappin, was so much like the clown in his ways and sayings, that afterwards everyone started calling him Gullins. This soon became a sort of nickname. Some years after when slaves were freed, they were all registered, most of them taking the family ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... another, riding this way; We soon shall know what he has to say. Courier! what are the tidings to-day? "Christ is arisen!" Whence come you? "From town." Then I do not believe it; away with you, clown. ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Come, look you now, Stead, 'tis not only being tired of service and sharp words, and nips and blows, but I don't like being mocked for having a clown and a lubber for my sweetheart. Oh yes! they do, and there's a skipper and two mates, and a clerk, and a well-to-do locksmith, besides gentlemen's valets and others, I don't account of, who would all cut off their little fingers if ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I see not what I see. Damsel and lover? hear not what I hear. My father hath begotten me in his wrath. I suffer from the things before me, know, Learn nothing; am not worthy to be knight; A churl, a clown!' and in him gloom on gloom Deepen'd: he sharply caught his lance and shield, Nor stay'd to crave permission of the King, But, mad ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... accompanying photograph will appear as if the person photographed is wearing a false face or has his face painted like a clown. On close observation you will notice that the face is made on the bald head of the person sitting behind the table. The eyes, nose and mouth are cut from black paper and pasted on the bald spot. The subject's face is horizontal and resting upon ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... of Prodigal Sons, To-day is a prodigious coxcomb, but To-morrow is a very poltroon, taking fright at the big words of his predecessor. To-day is the truculent captain of old world comedy, To-morrow the clown of modern pantomime. ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... Tom, waving his hand at the man. "How are we to-morrow, as the clown in the circus ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... The young clown entreats that he may take this adventure, and notwithstanding the wonder and misgiving of all, the armor is found to fit him well, and when he had put it on, "he seemed the goodliest man in all the company, and was well liked by the lady, ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... gen'lemen in dey conve'sition, you Yankee clown? Do you igno' dad you 'ave insult ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... what tricks, by the pale moonlight, Are played by me, the merry little Sprite, Who wing thro' air from the camp to the court, From king to clown, and of all make sport; Singing, I am the Sprite Of the merry midnight, Who laugh at weak mortals ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... surmounted this by saying, "Ladies and genelmen, I want you to stick closer than brothers. When you hear me a-talkin' don' you go turnin' over your Baedekers and lookin' out of the window. If I didn't know a great big sight more about Versailles than Baedeker does I wouldn't be here makin' a clown of myself; an' I'll show you the view out of the window all in good time. You see that lady an' two genelmen over there? They're listenin' all right enough because they don't belong to this party an' they want to get a ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... whip, and out from a side place, back of a big screen, came Jack Hopkins dressed like a real clown, leading our old friend Frisky, ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope
... to be a clown, Playing tricks around the town, Turning somersaults and springs, As if they were easy things, Laughing morning, noon and night, Being such ...
— Songs for Parents • John Farrar
... deformed in figure—a caricature of a man, His Grace of Richmond was the last degenerate scion of the Stuarts of Richmond-d'Aubigny, a man of depraved tastes and besotted brain, the butt and the clown of Charles's Court. That this middle-aged buffoon should aspire to the hand of the loveliest and most elusive woman in England was only less amazing than that she should smile on his suit. The Court was struck with ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... characterized by such an excess of words, figures and ornaments as to be ridiculous and disgusting. It is like a circus clown dressed up in gold tinsel Dickens gives a fine example of it in Sergeant Buzfuz' speech in the "Pickwick Papers." Among other varieties of style may be mentioned the colloquial, the laconic, the concise, the diffuse, the abrupt the flowing, ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... you are to learn what a "Master" is. Here was one man at least, who knew his business, once upon a time! Unaccusably;—none of your fool's heads or clown's hearts can find a fault here! "Dog-fancier,[49] cobbler, tailor, or churl, look here"—says Master Jacopo—"look! I know what a brute is, better than you, I know what a silken tassel is—what a leathern ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... is not to excite fear of supernatural things in my reader, but to show the effect of such fear upon the agents of the story—one a man in sense and firmness, one a man unhinged by remorse, one a stupid, unenquiring clown, one a learned and worthy but ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... could not but ensue. This curiosity was full of kindness; their hearts were a little touched by the ploughman, by his glowing eyes, and by the strange sight of him there among them in the midst of their high civilisation, a rustic clown who knew nothing better than a thatched cottage and a clay floor. No doubt they had the sincerest desire that he should be made to understand how much he was deficient, what a great deal he had to learn, and be ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... with them. When the day for signing arrived, the bridegroom-elect demurred at first to the stringency of the provisions of the marriage-contract; but as upon this point Mr Dutton was found to be inflexible, the handsome, illiterate clown—he was little better—gave up his scruples, the more readily as a life of assured idleness lay before him, from the virtual control he was sure to have over his wife's income. These were the thoughts which passed across ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... the Euryalus brought up above the Third Cataract, don't you? and eighty-one-ton guns at Jakdul? Now, I'm quite satisfied with my breeches.' He turned round gravely to exhibit himself, after the manner of a clown. ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... to London one morning in Spring, Hey derry, ho derry, fal de rai la, Took a fat pig to market, his leg in a string, Hey derry, ho derry, fal de rai la; The clown drove him forward, while piggy, good lack! Lik'd his old home so well, he still tried to ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... another. Nor are sentiments of elevation in themselves turgid and unnatural. Nature is never more truly herself than in her grandest forms. The Apollo of Belvedere (if the universal robber has yet left him at Belvedere) is as much in Nature as any figure from the pencil of Rembrandt or any clown in the rustic revels of Teniers. Indeed, it is when a great nation is in great difficulties that minds must exalt themselves to the occasion, or all is lost. Strong passion under the direction of a feeble reason feeds a low fever, which serves ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Aunt Abby," she said; "you can't go that way. It would be all right to go with Ferdinand, of course, but what could you do when you, reached Newark? Race about on foot, following up this clown, ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... and we are surprised to find many writers looking upon this "Cogito, ergo sum" as constituting the great idea in his system. Surely it is only a statement of universal experience—an epigrammatic form given to the common-sense view of the matter. Any clown would have told him that the assurance of his existence was his consciousness of it; but the clown would not have stated it so well. He would have said, "I know I exist, because I feel ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... illustrations, to the horror of the big-worded Sophists, from dogs, kettles, fishwives, and what not which is vulgar and commonplace? Or did I, in my clumsy attempt to imitate him, make use of a single argument which does not lie, developed or undeveloped, in the Common Sense of every clown; in that human Reason of his, which is part of God's image in him, and in every man? And has not my complaint against Mr. Windrush's school been, that they will not do this; that they will not accept the ground which is common to men as men, but disregard that part of the 'Vox ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley
... perfectly all right; most natural mistake in the world. I've got a clown costume and I'm going down there myself after a while. Silly idea for a man of my age." He turned to Butterfield. "Better change your mind and ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... said Colonel Laporte, "although I am old and gouty, my legs as stiff as two pieces of wood, yet if a pretty woman were to tell me to go through the eye of a needle, I believe I should take a jump at it, like a clown through a hoop. I shall die like that; it is in the blood. I am an old beau, one of the old school, and the sight of a woman, a pretty woman, stirs me to the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... to throw the ball around the left end. Wadleigh, Hudson, Darrin and Prescott, backed by quarter and left half, presented such a stubborn block that the ball did not get another yard clown the field in two plays. But Pike, who was a hammerer, made a third attempt around that left end. This time he gained but two feet, and ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... be no bearing him. But the truth is, the young man's success and dashing manners pleased his elder companion. He liked to see Pen gay and spirited, and brimful of health, and life, and hope; as a man who has long since left off being amused with clown and harlequin, still gets a pleasure in watching a child at a pantomime. Mr. Pen's former sulkiness disappeared with his better fortune: and he bloomed as the sun ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... one that is foolish, proud, positive, testy; or with a superior, or a clown, in matter ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... Vice represented the leading spirit of evil in any particular play, sometimes Fraud, Covetousness, Pride, Iniquity, or Hypocrisy. It was the business of the Vice to annoy the Virtues and to be constantly playing pranks. The Vice was the predecessor of the clown and the fool upon the stage. The Vice also amused the audience by tormenting the Devil, belaboring him with a sword of lath, sticking thorns into him, and making him roar with pain. Sometimes the Devil would be kicked down Hell Mouth by the offended ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... hands loudly together in protest. "Ay, by the gods, much better. She is far too fair for the first sweetness of her youth to be wasted on a clumsy clown. We are ourselves indifferent good at this taming and the rest, and, like a loyal subject, I will gladly serve the King in this." He advanced towards Perpetua, but Robert instantly came ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... ruffians, or wandering comedians that were hated, or scorned, pitied, embraced, conventionalized. There's not a notion in this book that has a more frightful, or ridiculous, mien than had the notion of human footprints in rocks, when that now respectabilized ruffian, or clown, was first heard from. It seems bewildering to one whose interests are not scientific that such rows should be raised over such trifles: but the feeling of a systematist toward such an intruder is just about what anyone's would be if ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... Brother North Wind had blown away enough of the snow to make walking fairly easy. They soon found that their hope that they would find some of their neighbors too weak to escape was quite in vain. When jolly, round, red Mr. Sun dropped clown behind the Purple Hills to go to bed, their stomachs were quite as empty as when ...
— Old Granny Fox • Thornton W. Burgess
... born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... you think you are made of—india-rubber? Did you suppose that you would drop on to the deck and bounce up again, to come down then on your feet and strike an attitude like a clown in a pantomime? ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... were an English lady. I asked myself what was the right thing to do, and I decided that though you would consider me an ill-mannered, churlish clown, I would refuse those gracious, charming advances which you in your charity made. Our paths in life were destined to be utterly apart and divided, and what could it matter to you—the behavior of an insignificant ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... Hugh, because you gave Nick such a beautiful trouncing the other night, so I was told. It was hard luck that I could only catch a word now and then, for some of the boys were calling out to each other; and that silly clown, Claude Hastings, had begun to sing one of his comic songs, while he capered around like a baboon. But I did hear Nick say the words: 'Get even,' 'show him who's who in this burgh,' and 'Belgian hares.' Do they put you ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... from this ambition. When the first negro minstrel show visited Hannibal and had gone, he yearned for a brief period to be a magnificent "middle man" or even the "end-man" of that combination; when the circus came and went, he dreamed of the day when, a capering frescoed clown, he would set crowded tiers of spectators guffawing at his humor; when the traveling hypnotist arrived, he volunteered as a subject, and amazed the audience by the marvel of ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... some high, some low, some red, some green, or yellow as it chanced, with horses few or many, often superior animals—stylish, fast, and sound; and again, the most diminutive of ponies, such as Monsieur the Clown drives into the ring of his canvass coliseum when he utters the pleasant salute of "Here I am, with all my little family?" This morning we have the old, familiar stage-coach of Yankee land—red, picked out with yellow; high, narrow, iron steps; broad thoroughbraces; ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... continued Abel, with what would be called in animals an ugly expression—"Belch is the clown, and they left him off easy. The Party is like the old kings, it keeps a good many fools to make ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... than he was ever before in his life, was conducted down below to the servants' quarters. Although they were town servants, and would certainly have disdained to speak to a mere beggar-boy, or to a young country clown, there was something in Dermot's unaffected manner and appearance which won their regard, and they treated him with far more kindness and attention than would ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... son) is really an exquisite droll, and I don't remember to have seen him in better form. He has some of the authentic ingredients of the old circus clown—a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... buffoon appears on the stage with head shaved close. "Why is the clown mourning?" "Because oil is so dear." "Why is oil dear?" "On account of the Jews. On the Sabbath day they consume everything they earn during the week. Not a stick of wood is left to make fire whereby to cook their meals. They are forced to burn their beds for fuel, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... her court; though he did certainly flatter her after a fashion in which few queens can be flattered. His description of the belligerent old Gorgon as the "Fair Vestal throned by the West" seems like the poetry and fancy of the beautiful Fairy Queen wasted upon the half-brute clown:— ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... the English Fairy court was the celebrated Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, who to the elves acted in some measure as the jester or clown of the company—(a character then to be found in the establishment of every person of quality)—or to use a more modern comparison, resembled the Pierrot of the pantomime. His jests were of the most simple and at the same time the broadest comic character—to ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... hands to heaven. The three of us went out of the door and walked. There was a snowy place in front of the church all party-colored like a clown's coat,—scarlet capotes, yellow capotes, and blue capotes, and bright silk handkerchiefs. They surrounded the Colonel. Pardieu, what was he to do now? For the British governor and his savages were coming to take revenge on them because, in their ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... child[4] Has been known to run wild At his too near approach, Her fear of him such, And to shriek and to howl And return scowl for scowl. Indeed few dare him face, And all shun his embrace; For though pleasant his smile, Yet one thinks all the while Of that terrible frown, Which the hardiest clown, Though a stout hearted man, Will avoid if he can. And though many maintain That he gives needless pain, I confess I admire This venerable sire. True his language is harsh, And his conduct oft rash, ...
— The Kings and Queens of England with Other Poems • Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow
... was a beautiful Queen mated with James VI, a pedant and a clown. On the other side were, first the Bonny Earl, then the Earl of Gowrie, both young, brave, handsome, both suddenly slain by the King's friends: none knew why. The opinion of the godly, of the Kirk, of the people, and even of politicians, leaped to the erroneous conclusion ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... abject than the union of elaborate and recherche arrangements with an old and obvious point? The clown with the red-hot poker and the string of sausages is all very well in his way. But think of a string of pate de foie gras sausages at a guinea a piece! Think of a red-hot poker cut out of a single ruby! Imagine such fantasticalities ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... That love their voices more than duty, learn With whom they deal, dismiss'd in shame to live No wiser than their mothers, household stuff, Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame, Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown, The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time, Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels, But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour For ever slaves at ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... the rolling eyes and gait and deathly treacherous knife, philogynist sans phrase; and Pedro, their groom, a reincarnated Caliban. It may also be noted that Heyst has a freak servant, the disappearing Wang, whom the adapter uses, I suppose legitimately, as a kind of clown. And then, finally, there is a charming and unusual heroine, Lena, still in her teens, but of real flesh and blood, innocent and persecuted, daughter of a drunken fiddler (deceased), herself fiddling in a tenth-rate orchestra at Schomberg's hotel, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... thine To save a life, and a love to win. No! no! the dastard kestrel kite Aye hugs the earth in his stealthy flight. Hope gone! the pool at the otter's cave Will prove the Ladye Tomasine's grave. Ho! ho! see yonder comes rushing down A lithe young hind, though a simple clown— Off bonnet and shoes, and coat and vest, A plunge! and he holds her round the waist! Three strokes of his arm, with his beautiful prize All safe, although faint, on the bank she lies! A cottager's wife came running down, "Take care of the ladye," said the clown. He has donned his clothes, and away ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... Plays were grotesque enough—made by common people for the instruction of common people. Even amid the pathos of divine suffering the peasants must be amused. Care was taken that the character of Judas should meet this demand. So Judas was made at once a traitor and a clown. His pathway was beset by devils of the most ridiculous sort. And when at last he hung himself on the stage, his body burst open, and the long links of sausages which represented intestines were devoured by the imps amid the laughter and delight of ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... elemental forces, we see a dark mass, that glows dully. We can hardly believe that here is the origin of the explosions that shake the island, and are inclined to consider the demon of the volcano rather as a mischievous clown than a thundering, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... clown such as that could have any chance of leaving the ground alive never entered his head. But willingly as he would have encompassed his death in this manner, the knowledge that his secret would not die with Quennebert restrained him, for when everything came out he felt ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the evening. He was somewhat limp after a day of mea culpas! and she, a quarter of an hour before the time for his reappearance, had powdered her nose—which, she knew, gave her an expression half amusing, half piteous, just like that of the clown who is playing his tricks at the circus while his little daughter is dying at home. "Hello, Goosie," she said breathlessly (also she had rubbed a trace of rouge under her eyes); "hello, just in time for dinner! Made a fine chocolate cake. ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... Memory of Her Late Royal Highness the Princess Dowager of Wales Song ('Let School-masters,' &c.) Epilogue to 'She Stoops to Conquer' Retaliation Song ('Ah, me! when shall I marry me?') Translation ('Chaste are their instincts') The Haunch of Venison Epitaph on Thomas Parnell The Clown's Reply Epitaph on Edward Purdon Epilogue for Lee Lewes Epilogue written for 'She Stoops to Conquer' (1) Epilogue written for 'She Stoops to Conquer' (2) The Captivity. An Oratorio Verses in Reply to an Invitation to Dinner Letter in Prose and Verse to Mrs. Bunbury ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... Fitzjames, 'can fail to be touched' when he sees an eminent lawyer 'bending the whole force of his mind to understand the confused, bewildered, wearisome, and half-articulate mixture of question and statement which some wretched clown pours out in the agony of his terror and confusion.' The latitude allowed in such cases is highly honourable. 'Hardly anything short of wilful misbehaviour, such as gross insults to the court or abuse of a witness, will draw upon (the prisoner) the ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... their actions, and by their bravery of mind, that it is life that is a calamity to men, and not death; for this last affords our souls their liberty, and sends them by a removal into their own place of purity, where they are to be insensible of all sorts of misery; for while souls are tied clown to a mortal body, they are partakers of its miseries; and really, to speak the truth, they are themselves dead; for the union of what is divine to what is mortal is disagreeable. It is true, the power of the soul is great, even when it is imprisoned in a mortal body; for by moving ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... hand, of which there exists a cast, without perceiving at once its capabilities. It was indeed small, but at the same time it was thin, light, delicately articulated, and, if I may say so, highly expressive. Chopin's whole body was extraordinarily flexible. According to Gutmann, he could, like a clown, throw his legs over his shoulders. After this we may easily imagine how great must have been the flexibility of his hands, those members of his body which he had specially trained all his life. Indeed, the startlingly wide-spread ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... by the darkies, I remember but two other bits of amusement we had while at Florence. One of these was in hearing the colored soldiers sing patriotic songs, which they did with great gusto when the weather became mild. The other was the antics of a circus clown—a member, I believe, of a Connecticut or a New York regiment, who, on the rare occasions when we were feeling not exactly well so much as simply better than we had been, would give us an hour or two of recitations of ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... The conventional dress of the court fool, or jester, of the Middle Ages, and, after him, of the stage clown, consisted of the "fool's cap" and suit of motley, ornamented with ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... were going to give a magic lantern show. Or is it for some new kinds of moving pictures? Say, do you remember the time we gave a show in the barn, and charged a nickel to come in? You were the clown, and—" ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... Flemish clown, noble sir," answered Dennis, as much overjoyed as if he had obtained some important advantage; "but I must needs say he is as stout and true as any whom you might trust; and, besides, his own shrewdness will teach him there is more to be gained by defending such a castle as this, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... goes a-tumbling through the hollow And trackless empyrean like a clown, Head pointed to the earth where weaklings wallow, Feet up toward the stars; not such renown Even our lord himself, the bright Apollo, Gets in his gilded car. For one bob down You shall behold the thing." "Right-o," I said, Clapping the old brown ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... out of a fourteenth century book, but dad looked like a clown in a circus. One of dad's calves made him look as though he had a milk leg, cause the padding would not stay around where the calf ought to be, but worked around towards his shin. We went to Marlboro House in a hansom cab, and all the way there the driver kept looking down from the hurricane ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... was playing execrably on Mademoiselle de Longueville's guitar. Surrounding were the younger courtiers and ladies, who also were enjoying the affair. There are few things which amuse young people as much as the sight of an elderly, dignified man making a clown ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... she could not recognise any one as she looked round upon Turks, clowns, Indians, the tinselled, sequined, beaded, ragged flutter of the room, then from the coloured and composite clothing of a footballer, clown or jockey grinned the round face and owlish eyes of little Duval, who flew to her at once to whisper compliments and stumble on the swelling fortress of her white skirt. She realised dimly from him that her dress was as beautiful ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... for these tidings. Now have I put on a fool's cap that these Genoese may have wherewith to rack their wits. Next I will shave my head, that they may play Merry Andrew to my Clown. How did the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... most complete champion that ever I heard!—Steel, if thou turn the edge, or cut not out the burly-boned clown in chines of beef ere thou sleep in thy sheath, I beseech God on my knees thou mayst be turn'd to hobnails.—[Here they fight. Cade falls.] O, I am slain! famine and no other hath slain me; let ten thousand devils come against me, and give ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... the audience was actually fooled into holding its breath. Then Bob's pet collie did an act, and the juggler juggled, in his turban, and some gym "stars" did turns on bars and swings. And there was an abundance of peanuts and pink lemonade, and a clown and a band; and Emily's introductions were alone well worth the ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither right tragedies nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decency nor discretion; so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained. I know Apuleius did somewhat ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney |
